Just bought some Monokote and a Coverite Iron and I've got a wing to patch. I normally fly helis, but I picked up a used Profile plane for Father's Day and I've been having a blast with it. Last weekend it had a run in with a 600 size helicopter (powered down on the runway) and lost ...

I'd prefer to watch a video of someone that knows what there are doing prior to giving it a go.

i don't know if it is still available but there once was a video on how to use Monokote by the manufacurer Top Flite.
The person in the video was Sid Axelrod the owner or pres of Top Flite. It was originally sold by Tower Hobbies for about $16.
I had a Beta copy years ago.

If you are planning on doing some covering I think you will the best videos were made by Charlie Bauer who was the product manager for Top Flight back in the day. He made a set of 5 videos covering everything could possibly want to know about monokote. I bought the first 2 many years ago and still watch them every now and then. He's a our local swap meets and has recently converted them to dvd. Charlie's Website.

Just fired off an e-mail, asking if they ship north of the border; at $10 a pop it's seems like a great deal. A complete set includes five DVDs from basic covering to advance detailing, also have some supplies up for grabs...

Hahahaha. Working with balsa, Styrofoam, MonoKote and a heat gun is far harder than it looks. Ay carumaba. I've been working with helis for years and normally pride myself as a pretty decent modeler. I cobbed this thing up big time. I've got wrinkles and I melted some of the fuselage Styrofoam. It should fly though. As long as its 100 feet up maybe no one will notice...

Get a glove. I didn't have one and I think that would have made a big difference on the tip. Also, my heat gun was too hot and I didn't have one of those heat directors (the funnel like tip).

I had to use see through red MonoKote and it didn't seem to have the same stretch characteristics as the blue Monokote he used in the video. It seemed that the material had to be pretty taunt even before you shrink it. I had one rib right up against my Styrofoam fuselage so I only had about a 1/8 inch to grab on that side. All told, it was no picnic.

Charles wrote back and ships to Canada, no extra shipping cost, I ordered a set today.

Michael

Glad he ships to the north land. When I bought them he was the only game in town, back in the 80's. I've seen some of the new videos and they are nothing more than commercials wrapped around a short how to. Not taking away from the youtube videos but Charlies are the best I've seen. I only have the first 2 in the set. He didn't have as many early on and to be quite honest I didn't think I needed anymore than the first 2. If you get the whole set let us know what you think. I may get the rest of them if they are worth it.

Get a glove. I didn't have one and I think that would have made a big difference on the tip. Also, my heat gun was too hot and I didn't have one of those heat directors (the funnel like tip).

I had to use see through red MonoKote and it didn't seem to have the same stretch characteristics as the blue Monokote he used in the video. It seemed that the material had to be pretty taunt even before you shrink it. I had one rib right up against my Styrofoam fuselage so I only had about a 1/8 inch to grab on that side. All told, it was no picnic.

Rick

That's one of the big gripes about monokote these days. The characteristics seem to vary color, transparency or sometimes from roll to roll. Not to turn this into another monokote complaint thread, because there are plenty of them, but... I have bought 20 year old rolls of monokote from the gentleman mentioned above. There is definitely something different in today's formulation. It just doesn't shrink as much as it used to needing to be stretched more and shrunk at a much higher temperature. I just recovered part of an old model in white and metallic blue and red. The blue was from a 20 year old roll and it would shrink just looking at it. The white was a problem requiring very high heat to shrink

That's one of the big gripes about monokote these days. The characteristics seem to vary color, transparency or sometimes from roll to roll. Not to turn this into another monokote complaint thread, because there are plenty of them, but... I have bought 20 year old rolls of monokote from the gentleman mentioned above. There is definitely something different in today's formulation. It just doesn't shrink as much as it used to needing to be stretched more and shrunk at a much higher temperature. I just recovered part of an old model in white and metallic blue and red. The blue was from a 20 year old roll and it would shrink just looking at it. The white was a problem requiring very high heat to shrink

The DVDs came in the mail today, could not have been better timing with the holidays coming up and I'll soon be starting my first covering, on my first build a SIG SE. Thanks for the hook-up, Mr. Bauer is a real gentlemen. I know you have 1 & 2, so I'll let you know how the other DVDs pan-out.